| [Mar. 5th, 2014|02:22 am] |
Kakashi lifted his face out of a puddle, coughing water and shaking mud out of his hair. Ryouma was sprawled across his back, laughing. Katsuko was tangled with both of them, one sharp elbow firmly planted in Kakashi’s ribs. At a safe distance, the lieutenant watched them blandly, like he hadn’t provided a distraction and set Ryouma on them like a wrecking ball.
“I hate you all,” Kakashi croaked, winded. He twisted free of Katsuko and kicked Ryouma off. “Also, that was not what I meant when I said you needed work, Tousaki. You weren’t supposed to recruit more people.”
Ryouma rolled to his feet, moving a little more fluidly than he had before. “Yeah, but the lieutenant didn’t help. He just distracted. That’s progress, right?” He offered Kakashi his hand again. “That was some pretty impressive water jutsu. Pulling it out of the mist?”
Be pleasant, the captain had said.
Kakashi’s eye narrowed, chakra shivering down through his arms. Katsuko made a faint noise and began to scramble. Ryouma’s hand froze mid-air. Kakashi twitched his shoulders.
The puddle exploded, unformed chakra flinging mud and water out in a brown kaleidoscope of vengeance. It caught Ryouma directly in the face and splattered Katsuko all over, laying new strata over her already battered jounin blues. The deluge stopped about six inches away from Genma’s feet. Ryouma blinked, eyes wide and startled behind a mud-mask. Dirty water dripped off his still-extended hand.
Kakashi got to his feet and brushed himself down. “It’s mostly ground-water,” he said. “Glad you like.”
Katsuko spluttered and collapsed onto her back, raising her hands in defeat. Ryouma finally unfroze, pulling his rejected hand back to wipe the mud out of his eyes. Since his hand was as filthy as the rest of him, he mostly succeeded in smearing things around. “Yeah,” he said. “I can taste the ground now.”
Kakashi snorted, but awarded Ryouma a grudging mental point for composure.
“I am the ground,” Katsuko said, staring up at the sky like it might hold the answers for her pain. Muddy water dripped out of her hair. “I liked this uniform.”
“Then stop antagonizing people while you wear it,” Kakashi said, and offered a hand down to her at the exact same time Ryouma did.
Ryouma blinked, Kakashi paused, and Katsuko grabbed both of them, letting them haul her up. “Then I’d never be able to wear it,” she complained.
“Then you—” Ryouma said, and clamped his mouth shut.
“Naked is not an option,” Kakashi said, finishing Ryouma’s patently obvious train of thought.
“I didn’t say it,” Ryouma said, quietly victorious.
Katsuko gave Kakashi a swift glare, patted Ryouma once on the arm, and then paused. “I was going to say that at least you don’t throw mud typhoons at me,” she told Ryouma. “But you were the one who tackled us in the first place.”
Ryouma shrugged cheerfully, as if that could happen to anyone.
Genma cleared his throat quietly, making all three of them head-snap around to look at him. His light brown eyes weighed them, taking in the drenched clothes, mud-streaked faces, and working looseness of exercised muscles.
“Taichou will be so pleased you’re all starting to learn,” he said. |
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